Siena College professor Todd Snyder in his office on Wednesday, March, 15, 2017, at Siena College in Colonie, N.Y. Siena is hosting its 3rd annual Hip-Hop Week on March 20-25. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

Siena College professor Todd Snyder in his office on Wednesday, March, 15, 2017, at Siena College in Colonie, N.Y. Siena is hosting its 3rd annual Hip-Hop Week on March 20-25. (Will Waldron/Times Union)

That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, by Murry Forman is a textbook used in professor Todd Snyders curriculum at Siena College on Wednesday, March, 16, 2017, in Colonie, N.Y. Siena is hosting its 3rd annual Hip-Hop Week on March 20-25. (Will Waldron/Times Union) less

That's the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader, by Murry Forman is a textbook used in professor Todd Snyders curriculum at Siena College on Wednesday, March, 16, 2017, in Colonie, N.Y. Siena is hosting its ... more

A Franciscan college located in the center of an affluent suburb seems ill-fitted for a hip-hop culture festival. Then again, a coal miner's kid from the mountains of West Virginia isn't the image that first comes to mind at the mention of a hip-hop professor.

Despite the unassuming appearances, Siena College has been a proponent of urban and hip-hop culture through classes on the subject and Hip-Hop Week, the 4-year-old strong celebration of the art that emerged from the experiences of minority urban life.

Merriam Webster dictionary defines hip-hop as "a subculture especially of inner-city youths who are typically devotees of rap music," and, "the stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rap." Todd Snyder, assistant professor of English at Siena College with a Ph.D in rhetoric (the art of persuasive language) and composition from Ohio University, first started teaching classes on the subject of hip-hop while a graduate student and Siena took note of this on his resume.

"They thought it would be a hit up here," says Snyder, who has taught classes on hip-hop rhetoric at Siena since he began teaching there in 2011.

Those classes led to Hip-Hop Week, an event that started in 2013 and is facilitated by the Damietta Cross-Cultural Center at Siena.

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If you go

Hip-Hop Week

Where: All events held in the Sarazen Student Union at Siena College in Loudonville and do not require a ticket.

"We use the class as a springboard for the event," says Snyder. The first year was a trial period for the annual event, which focused on the origins of hip-hop in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. The second year featured a keynote address by Grandmaster Flash, a pioneer of hip-hop culture who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 with his group Furious Five, becoming the first hip-hop act to be inducted. Last year's keynote address was given by Chuck D., of Public Enemy, who is also in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"We want to include historically relevant people to the advancement of the culture," says Snyder, who found that including such heavy hitters in the programming led to tremendous support from the college and surrounding community. "We show we appreciate hip-hop and what it's done for American culture," says Snyder. He notes that, "hip-hop is a window into a world," and, "sort of a bridge for people," to explore an experience different from one's own. Snyder grew up the mining town of Cowen, W. Va., in a setting of "high, cyclical poverty, and as a kid in that environment your fate seems inevitable," he says. An older cousin exposed him to early hip-hop acts like Kurtis Blow and Run-D.M.C. It shed light on politics, language and culture different from his own.

"Hip-hop was like the news for me. It made writing cool," he says, leading to a life of scholarship. "I knew the five boroughs before I ever left West Virginia," jokes Snyder, and he became the first person in his family to attend college.

His experience is mirrored by his students at Siena. In his hip-hop rhetoric classes, students deeply examine lyrics, phrasing, tropes and techniques through songs and documentaries and often find the same connection that Snyder did. "Kids nod their heads," he says, and develop a sense of camaraderie among themselves, with the artists and with their professor, with one caveat: "They do feel disconnected from this history. It's not what it was for me," and the artists that gave Snyder a sense of the world beyond West Virginia are considered "old" rappers for his students.

That hasn't prevented hip-hop from serving as a microscope on cultural struggles. "Hip-hop is cyclical," says Snyder, but it always comes back to issues of identity and politics.

"Music has always been one thing that brings people together. We want to provide an opportunity for our students and community members to connect with one another despite our differences. The hip-hop genre started as a movement for social justice. We hope to utilize this week to celebrate the diversity and the contribution that hip-hop has made to our society," says Christa Grant, director of the Damietta Center.

This year's Hip-Hop Week is themed "her story" and explores female perspective in hip-hop. Sha-Rock, the first female emcee to appear on ''Saturday Night Live'' and considered to be the first woman to record a hip-hop album with the group Funky 4 + 1, is the keynote speaker on Monday night. A women of hip-hop panel discussion, featuring local creatives, rappers and poets, will touch on the female experience, as reported through the genre of hip-hop. (Snyder has provided a playlist of female emcees throughout hip-hop's history. Listen on Spotify).

He says the goal of the event is to bring together the Siena and Albany communities to celebrate hip-hop's history and contribution, making Hip-Hop Week something people look forward to each month.

"We celebrate Black History every February in a Hallmark way, but there is so much more to the culture," Snyder says.